salty nothings are yummier

Upgrading to Haykuro

Haykuro has recently released a series of Android builds. This is the software for the HTC Magic, ported to the G1. Since I have not had time to fully explore this new operating system, I’ll just list some of the most obvious changes:

activation not required! (can set up account later)

new theme

new camera options, such as video recording

lock-screen background

3G notification icon says H

smooth transitions by default

automatic screen orientation flipping

no more voice search in search widget

on-screen keyboard

… among other things …

Now, it is actually pretty simple to get this software. There’s even a nice guide for this, which was pretty straightforward for me to follow. Nevertheless, since I had not rooted my phone and I have no data plan, I had a couple of extra steps.

0. Pre-requisites

It is necessary to format the microSD card as a FAT32 super-floppy. This means that there is no partition table and that there is a single FAT32 partition that spans the entire disk. Windows by default formats removable storage as super-floppies. In addition, it is necessary to get ADB working. These are out of the scope of this guide, but do ask in the comments if you’re having trouble.

Backup your data! This procedure will erase everything.

Before starting, please open up the Haykuro guide; what I write here only supplements the original information.

1. Downgrade to RC29 using DREAIMG.nbh

This was easy enough, but left me with a non-activated phone. To activate, I used JesusFreke’s trick. Since I had RC29, I entered setprop app.setupwizard.disable 1 on the keyboard to enable debugging, and raised the Settings manager by entering am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings through the ADB shell.

2. Perform a nandroid backup

This is optional, but I did it anyway just to be safe.

3. Flash the new ROM

I downloaded the Chinese 5.0.1H_zh_signed.zip because the English version was not available. I didn’t mind because I know Chinese, but it was pretty easy to switch to English in the settings. For the record, the English-default version is now available for download.

Edit: I take that back; the English version just does not have Chinese fonts; it still needs to be switched to English. Therefore, I’d recommend getting the Chinese version.

3b. Switch to English

Now if you want to switch to English, start from the home screen and:

Push Menu

Touch the lower-right item (Settings)

Touch the next-to-last item (Locale & text)

Touch the first item (Select locale)

Select the first item (English)

Reboot for full effect

4. Upgrade the radio firmware

I did this because it was recommended, but I didn’t have any issues without it.

4 Comments

I haven’t had much time to play with the JF builds (because I went straight to Haykuro after rooting), but I don’t see any multitouch action. But it is indeed rooted. Only the G series has the superuser whitelist manager, though.

Right now I prefer the H series due to the extra functionality, but it would be awesome if the best features could be ported over to the G series.

Hi, that’s quite easy: just put the update.zip on your SD root, reboot into recovery mode, and press alt+s to install. If you run into problems, you might want to wipe using alt+w.

Warning: I heard that Haykuro’s new ADP build overwrites the recovery partition with the stock recovery partition. I’m not sure because I’ve been using TheDude’s builds, but please make sure before flashing. On the other hand, TheDude’s builds seem quite polished.